Thursday, August 7, 2014

"Pages of Ghosts, Spirits, and Criminals"

Tim Prasil has devoted considerable attention to the occult detective story, i.e., mysteries in which supernatural factors come into play, either as actual manifestations of the Other World (e.g., John Silence) or to serve as red herrings that distract the reader's attention away from a more mundane explanation for events (e.g., Dr. Gideon Fell).Prasil credits Edgar Allan Poe with "set[ting] a precedence for fictional detectives to debunk supernatural possibilities," thus paving the way for the likes of Dr. Fell. Prasil adds:

. . . in an interview for The Forum, prolific mystery writer Carolyn Wells would whine, “I have no patience with the occult, the psychic, the spiritualistic in detective stories.” — Tim Prasil, "The Bias Against Mixing Mystery Stories with the Supernatural," TIM PRASIL: INVENTOR OF PERSONS (January 12, 2014)

As if to demonstrate her impatience with the supernatural in detective fiction, Carolyn Wells wrote a series of eight novels in which the occult seems at first to be the only explanation for the mystery but is ultimately shown to be a mislead; these books are often referred to as the Pennington Wise (or "Penny" Wise and Zizi) series.THE ROOM WITH THE TASSELS.By Carolyn Wells (1862-1942).George H. Doran.1918. 283 pages. $1.40Online HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.For purchase HERE.

It had seemed an idyllic way for a group of wealthy New Yorkers to spend a summer month, researching the supernatural in a reputed haunted mansion in the depths of Vermont’s Green Mountains. That is until two of their number are mysteriously struck down at afternoon tea. Were their deaths the result of supernatural forces? Or did they meet their death due to a more human hand? This is the riddle that the famed detective Pennington Wise must unravel as he tries to discover what happened in . . . The Room with the Tassels! — RESURRECTED PRESS description

[Full review] Here, for instance, are the yarns of Miss Carolyn Wells has been so busily spinning of late. In their way they are excellent specimens of the pure mechanical romance. They abound in perplexing cross-paths and false signboards; not till we finally stumble into the centre of the maze do we see how childishly simple the real clue was. Miss Wells knows that it is only the machinery that counts, and appears to find an impish satisfaction in being, with perfect safety, as absurd as possible in everything but the naked contrivance.

Cute little Vernie's death by murder is faced by her young friends with appalling nonchalance. It is folly for the reader to look for anything like characterization or consecutive human action in this variety. It is also risky for the story-teller to pretend even for a moment that his puppets are alive. We cannot be bothered with real people: next thing we should be actually worrying over their proximity to the buzz-saw! So far as the human personnel of the affair is concerned, let us have our make-believe as open as possible. The buzz-saw's the thing. — "Tricks and Inventions," THE NATION (October 19, 1918)

Out of a conversation in which spirit-manifestation is "cussed and discust" grows a half-serious, half-humorous suggestion to have a house party in a real "ha'nted" house, and strangely enough, eight people of supposedly sound minds are found foolish enough to lend themselves to such a crazy scheme.

The frolic loses its spontaneous merriment almost immediately, and when two of the party are murdered under startling and impossible conditions all the fun disappears. Tragedy takes its place, and detectives are called in.

The story is in Carolyn Wells's usual style and will please a certain class of readers, but it is difficult to satisfy any intelligent reader with a story whose premises are impossible, whose situations are forced and foolish, whose artificiality was so plainly created to hoodwink one's intelligence, and whose conversations are so plainly calculated to place suspicion on each character in turn, except, perhaps, the guilty one.

After pages of ghosts, spirits, and criminals the solution comes on the last page and is supposed to startle and surprize every one. — "Notable Recent Fiction," THE LITERARY DIGEST (November 16, 1918; go to page 46, near top)

[Review excerpts] . . . [The two main characters Pennington "Penny" Wise and his female sidekick Zizi] are all the more interesting because they are not really detectives—they are con artists. . . . Wise tends to be drawn to cases that involve apparent supernatural events and he fancies himself a ghost buster. Zizi plays the part of his mysterious assistant and pretends to be psychic. She dresses all in black, floats in and out of rooms as quietly as the specters they are exposing, and frightens the heck out of the suspects with her freakish behavior and insinuating accusations. They're a great duo and it is largely due to their presence that I liked this book the best. . . . — John, PRETTY SINISTER BOOKS (December 10, 2011)

[Excerpt] . . . a mystery novel from 1918 by prolific writer Carolyn Wells which introduces her Pennington "Penny" Wise series detective character. Penny Wise does not actually appear until 2/3rds of the way into the book, as we get an elaborate set-up involving some bored rich people who, when debating the truth or falsity of spiritualism and ghosts and the like, decide to find a "real" haunted house to rent for the summer where they will conduct an investigation. It's kind of neat to see a horror trope like this being used this early (although occult detectives and the like had done it earlier) and with such a variety of viewpoints. . . . — Shawn, GOODREADS (June 9, 2014)

[Excerpt] Occult detective and con artist Pennington Wise along with his eccentric silent movie actress sidekick, Zizi, make their debut in this witty and strange book, one of Well's more entertaining and readable novels. It's a locked room mystery but the impossibility of the crime is hardly a big mystery since it relies on Well's favorite gimmick of a secret passage. The majority of the book, an outrageous mix of the bizarre and sarcastic jibes from the detective duo, more than make up for her shortcomings in the "Ingenious Impossible Crime Department", a favorite subgenre of Wells' but one that was never her strength. . . . — J. F. Norris, GAD Wiki

[Excerpt] . . . The novel's biggest virtue is the introduction of a new detective, Pennington Wise, and more interestingly, his female assistant Zizi, a well-developed character. Pennington Wise resembles Fleming Stone, in being a crisp, business-like detective. He is an artist, like the well-to-do artist suspect in A Chain of Evidence, in a day when artists were often respected members of the Establishment. Zizi is a lively original, and a woman with a varied and colorful background. She would make a good movie heroine, and is proof that feminist ideas about dynamic heroines were already present in the 1910's. . . . — Mike Grost, A GUIDE TO CLASSIC MYSTERY AND DETECTION ("Carolyn Wells")

As a young lawyer is about to leave his office on the top floor of a Madison Avenue office building, he hears an argument followed by a shot from the office across the hall. But when he goes to investigate he finds no sign of either victim or assailant despite the fact that no one could have passed him without being seen. However, as is soon discovered, a murder has indeed been committed, that of the banker who owned the building. But who is the murderer? A business associate, the banker’s beautiful ward, or a mysterious woman who had been in the office earlier? And what part, if any, was played by the amnesia victim pulled from the river; a man who insists that his earliest memory is of falling through a hole in the earth? — RESURRECTED PRESS description

. . . The Man Who Fell Through the Earth (1919) opens with a simple architectural mystery. It is a bit in the tradition of Wells' earlier works, although simpler than most. Wells solves the puzzle almost immediately, and does not make it the center of her novel (Chapters 1, 3). While these ideas are a cheat by modern impossible crime standards, as are several of Wells' stories, the architecture here has its points of imagination.

Wells soon introduces a second mystery, about the near-impossible disappearance in the street of Amory Manning (Chapter 4). . . . Wells' solution, announced by a strange sleuth-character Case Rivers (Chapter 8, 11, 18), has a paradoxical Borges-like feel. Wells had a flair for names, especially in her detectives. The best chapters of The Man Who Fell Through the Earth are very much worth reading, for their mystery ideas. It is one of Carolyn Wells' more experimental novels. — Mike Grost, op. cit.

The Campanile was a fashionable apartment building in the heart of Manhattan. It was known for its elaborate façade and an ornate lobby featuring large onyx pillars. It was a perfectly respectable place with perfectly respectable well to do tenants, that is until one of them, Sir Herbert Binney, owner of the well known Binney’s Bun company is found dead in its lobby, clutching a paper on which he had scrawled “women did it.” But which women? The chorus girls of which Sir Herbert was so fond? Girls from the building’s staff with whom he had taken liberties? Or the two middle-aged women who had been feuding for twenty years, one of whom was the aunt to his nephew and heir? With a fortune involved and the secret recipe for Binney’s Buns at stake, there are more than enough suspects and clues to what happened . . . In the Onyx Lobby. — RESURRECTED PRESS description

[Full review] The singular accident by which the detectives and the readers are put on the wrong track almost to the end of the book is cleverly invented. Otherwise we cannot rank the book very highly in the constantly multiplying number of books of this class. — "The New Books," THE OUTLOOK (October 27, 1920)

Headland House, so named because it was situated on a narrow headland overlooking the scenic Maine village of Headland Harbor, was a picturesque place to spend a summer holiday. The village was something of an artist’s colony, and the house itself, though barely accessible, offered stunning views of the sea, so the Varians had been more than willing to rent the house for the summer and invite family to join them. But, when on a picnic, Betty Varian and her father return to the house for a forgotten camera the father is murdered and daughter disappears. As the rest of the party were waiting on the only path to the house, in plain sight of the front door, the crime presents a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Was it a murder or a suicide? A kidnapping? And what has happened to the girl, Betty Varian? These are the questions that confront the famed detective Pennington Wise as he attempts to solve . . . The Vanishing of Betty Varian. — RESURRECTED PRESS description

[Full review] Mysterious murder and disappearance. Rather the best of Miss Wells's recent detective webs. — "The Bookman's Guide to Fiction," THE BOOKMAN (July 1922)

The Vanishing of Betty Varian (1922) is another story about getting in and out of a locked domicile: here a whole house. It has some good storytelling, especially in its opening (Chapters 1-3). Its architectural/landscape setting on the coast of Maine, also set forth in the opening, is vivid, and most suited to an impossible crime puzzle. One wonders if Ellery Queen remembered this, when he created The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935).

A later section (Chapter 7) also gives a good summary of the mystery problem as a whole. Its solution is a real disappointment: both cornball, and a cheat by modern standards (end of Chapter 17). It is like a simpler version of the same kind of solution in The White Alley.

The tale has poor mystery subplots (the will, the letter signed "Step"). The novel's core mystery is much like the famous vanishing of Mr. James Phillimore, briefly referred to by Doyle in "The Problem of Thor Bridge" (1922) - and with no solution given by Doyle. Wells treats her puzzle as an Impossible Crime - a concept not actually in Doyle's brief summary. One wonders if Wells' novel had an influence on later versions of the Phillimore mystery by John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen, which also conceive of the vanishing as an Impossible Crime. — Mike Grost, op. cit.

[Full review] A man was murdered from all four directions at once. Who did it? — "The Bookman's Guide to Fiction," THE BOOKMAN (June 1923; go to page 447 top right)

[Full review] Another murder mystery with a new twist that complicates the unraveling. — "The Bookman'sGuide to Fiction," THE BOOKMAN (August 1923; go to page 639, right bottom)

[Excerpts] . . . Certainly this is a very dated novel, with what we would consider psychologically implausible characters and a lot of over-writing. Still, it has its attractions. . . . — Susan, GOODREADS (June 19, 2011)

[Full review] This detective story would be rather dull with only its mystery and its detective, but fortunately there is a perfectly fascinating character in the village idiot. — "The Bookman's Guide to Fiction," THE BOOKMAN (November 1923)

[Full review] Carolyn Wells has two books on the autumn lists. The first one SPOOKY HOLLOW(Lippincott, $2.00) is very good up to about page 100, but then it collapses and goes to pieces. The other, WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS (Doran) was bad, the only interesting character (for us) being the village idiot who holds the solution of the mystery. — "Opinions About Books," THE FORUM (January 1924; page 128, left bottom)